Of course he can? By observing non-omniscient creatures. Better still, he could put his omniscience on the shelf and take on the form of one of them, and then he would know precisely how it feels. An omniscient being would discover a way to do that, wouldn’t he?

Enegue, I suppose that is the mystery of the Christian faith. I never understood how jesus could be a limited man and an unlimited god all at once, not only that, be present in the limited body of jesus, and have a conversation with himself as also rules in the heavens. There may also be similiar occurances in other religions, I think there are similiar manifestations in hinduism, and perhaps greek and roman mythology.

Enegue, I suppose that is the mystery of the Christian faith. I never understood how jesus could be a limited man and an unlimited god all at once, not only that, be present in the limited body of jesus, and have a conversation with himself as also rules in the heavens. There may also be similiar occurances in other religions, I think there are similiar manifestations in hinduism, and perhaps greek and roman mythology.

Let me tell you how I think it all works.

We are tripartite beings consisting of spirit/heart/soul, mind and body. You guys recognise mind and body, but you give no credence to the existence of the spiritual aspect of our being. The spirit is hidden away from your conscious view and you will never see it unless you are shown, and you will never admit to it until you experience enlightenment.

That being the case, I can still describe its function. Your spirit is the first cause of everything you do, and is the repository of everything you consider profitable. Your mind is pretty much like the CPU of a computer that receives input and then processes it with other stored data to come up with a plan of how to apprehend those profitable things. Your body is the means by which you move about in time and space to follow your plan and take hold of your profitable things. The mind and body are referred to as “the flesh” in the Bible.

Now, God is a higher form of being who consists of spirit alone and we are lower forms of being, by virtue of our flesh. All God had to do was put together the flesh (mind and body) and then invest it with himself. Jesus couldn’t be born in a conventional way, because when children are born, they get a random copy of both their physical and spiritual traits from their parents, so God would then co-habit the body of Jesus. No, Jesus had to be born in such a way, that he was fully human and a descendant of king David according to the flesh (mind and body), but also fully God according to the spirit, which is why he had to be born of a virgin.

“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”—Luke 1:35

So, now, rather than reading this as God inseminating one of his lowly creatures, you can view it a little more dispassionately and scientifically as simply the creation of a complete zygote with no need of individual gametes. In this way the physical attributes of both Mary and Joseph could be knit together in a way that would connect Jesus’ according to the flesh to his ancestor, king David. In terms of how God might do this, I would point you to our clumsy manipulation of atoms as a crude example of a much more sophisticated method that would be available to him.

Enegue,
“In this way the physical attributes of both Mary and Joseph could be knit together in a way that would connect Jesus’ according to the flesh to his ancestor, king David.”

I never heard this explaination before. Let me get this right, your saying that in a way Joseph is really the father of Jesus, via his genetic information which was directly inserted into the ova of mary? So, kind of like artificial insemination, but even more refined than that, to the point that Josephs sperm wasn’t even involved?

This reminds me of the film “Gattaca” (1997) where parents could for a price select the best genetics to make their children. Its still their children, using their own genetic information, but made the best possible children, as far as what was known about genetics. A thought provoking film.

I always wondered how Christians squared Matthew 1:1-17 with the virgin birth. If Joseph was not the father this information is only meaningful ‘spiritually’. But your explanation is one possible way to square Josephs ancestry with the virgin birth.

Let me get this right, your saying that in a way Joseph is really the father of Jesus, via his genetic information which was directly inserted into the ova of mary? So, kind of like artificial insemination, but even more refined than that, to the point that Josephs sperm wasn’t even involved?

Well, kind of. Artificial insemination involves sperm and ovum. What I am suggesting, however, is that there was NO sperm and NO ovum (these are called gametes), and the zygote, which is normally formed by the union of gametes, was constructed in the first instance, using the genetic attributes of Mary AND Joseph. There was no chance involved as there usually is with reproduction, God put together the exact body that would meet his needs.

NewShoe - 28 January 2013 02:29 AM

This reminds me of the film “Gattaca” (1997) where parents could for a price select the best genetics to make their children. Its still their children, using their own genetic information, but made the best possible children, as far as what was known about genetics. A thought provoking film.

Yes, one of my favourite films.

NewShoe - 28 January 2013 02:29 AM

I always wondered how Christians squared Matthew 1:1-17 with the virgin birth. If Joseph was not the father this information is only meaningful ‘spiritually’. But your explanation is one possible way to square Josephs ancestry with the virgin birth.

Well, you don’t often hear the scenario I have suggested, and hear instead, Joseph referred to as Jesus’ step-father, but the Bible clearly links Jesus to David, through Joseph. Matthew’s genealogy ends with:
“And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.”—Matthew 1:16

Without Luke’s genealogy, we would be led to believe that Joseph’s father was Jacob, but Luke’s genealogy begins:
“And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was [the son] of Heli,”—Luke 3:23

Luke’s genealogy makes it clear that Heli is Joseph’s father, so what do we make of Matthew’s genealogy? Well, women never get a mention in Jewish lists of descendants, so if a man didn’t have any sons, the sons his daughters had would be listed as descendants of their grandfather. That is, for the purpose of the genealogy, the grandfather begat the daughter’s sons, which would mean that Jacob in Matthew’s genealogy, was actually Joseph’s grandfather on his mother’s side.

We know that Mary and Elizabeth were cousins, and Elizabeth was descended from Aaron, which means Mary was descended from Aaron also. Since, Jesus was descended from David on Joseph’s side and Aaron on Mary’s side, he is eligible as both King and Priest.

Enegue,
You intend to totally re-write biology to make the story of the virgin birth literally true? To start with an ova from mary, and genetic implants seemed acceptable to me, but what you are suggesting makes no sense at all. What you are suggesting might potentially mean that Mary and Josephs geneolgy may have nothing to do with Jesus’s genetic make up. It would be therefore meaningless to list either or both geneology. At some point there has to be a single cell with a complete set of DNA that makes up a person. Unless of course one completely rewrites biology.

You intend to totally re-write biology to make the story of the virgin birth literally true?

Not at all. If we are capable of genetic engineering then surely you’d expect the intelligence that created us to be able to do it better and earlier than us.

NewShoe - 28 January 2013 06:31 AM

What you are suggesting might potentially mean that Mary and Josephs geneolgy may have nothing to do with Jesus’s genetic make up.

Yes, with the entire palette of genetic attributes at his disposal, God could have caused Mary to give birth to a cabbage. Since it was necessary to create a man, the Bible calls him the second Adam, and that man needed to be connected to David in order to fulfil prophecy, then the palette of genetic attributes was constrained by these conditions.

NewShoe - 28 January 2013 06:31 AM

It would be therefore meaningless to list either or both geneology.

No, it was important to show where the genetic attributes came from, and it was done in such a way as to remove all doubt. It is clear that the Bible speaks of Joseph as Jesus’ father, so we either just accept it or we find a satisfactory explanation for it. If we accept that God could create the first Adam from fundamental physical elements (dust of the ground), then it is also reasonable to accept that he was able to create the second Adam from fundamental genetic elements.

NewShoe - 28 January 2013 06:31 AM

At some point there has to be a single cell with a complete set of DNA that makes up a person.

That’s right, it’s called a zygote. God designed the zygote from the blueprints of Mary and Joseph’s DNA. It’s not a difficult concept for us to grasp with our current knowledge of science. You are having difficulty because you can’t grasp the notion of God, or if you can, you can’t grasp the notion of his superior understanding of the things he created.

You said that no gametes were required. No gametes…no zygote. Alright, so a new adam, created being, not conceived,but using the DNA available from mary and joseph. Very strange, yes he was from mary and joseph, and No he wasn’t.

This is true under normal circumstances, but your next statement gives me hope that you’ve caught hold of the vision.

NewShoe - 28 January 2013 08:05 AM

Alright, so a new adam, created being, not conceived,but using the DNA available from mary and joseph.

Yes, you have it now. Just one more hurdle.

NewShoe - 28 January 2013 08:05 AM

Very strange, yes he was from mary and joseph, and No he wasn’t.

Remember, before I mentioned this idea of God genetically engineering a zygote, I spoke about the tripartite nature of Man - spirit, mind and body - and that the Bible refers to the mind and body as the “flesh”, well, according to the flesh (mind,body) Jesus WAS Man (from Mary and Joseph), and according to the spirit, Jesus WAS God.

I know you probably struggle with the idea of your spiritual nature, but if I give you an analogy, it might help. You see Man as a bipartite being consisting of mind and body, which means you see him in the same way as you see a computer - hardware (body) and firmware/software (mind). However, a computer doesn’t experience content or discontent. This aspect of our being is missing for computers, and is what I refer as the spirit. We experience discontent when the things we treasure are beyond our reach, and we experience content as we get nearer to the things we treasure and take hold of them.

The interface between spirit and mind is emotion. You are pre-configured at birth with the things you treasure (you get a random combination of the things your parents treasure), and these things are what your parents do battle with during your nurture. You are not a mirror image of either of them, but a blend, and you siblings are different blends. We are not hard-wired to treasure the same things as God, but Jesus was because Jesus WAS God, according to the spirit.

In John chapter 10, Jesus says, “I and my father are one.”, which caused the Jews great discontent, so much in fact, that they took up stones to throw at him. Jesus could say this because the spirit that moved him was God, and it caused the Jews discontent because the spirit that moved them, wasn’t.

I could talk about this forever, but I think I’d better leave there for the moment.